Chapter 8

Individual Discrimination

Discrimination carried out by one individual against another.

Pluralism

A cultural pattern of intergroup relations that encourages racial and ethnic variation and acceptance within a society.

Assimilation

A pattern or relation between ethnic or racial groups in which the minority group is absorbed into the mainstream or dominant group, making society more homogenous.

Racism

A set of beliefs about the superiority of one racial or ethnic group; used to justify inequality and often rooted in the assumption that differences between groups are genetic.

Ethnicity

A socially defined category based on common language, nationality, history, or another cultural factor.

Race

A socially defined category based on real or perceived biological differences between groups of people.

Situational Ethnicity

An ethnic identity that can be either displayed or concealed depending on its usefulness in a given situation.

Symbolic Ethnicity

An ethnic identity that is only relevant on specific occasions and does not significantly impact everyday life.

Prejudice

An idea about the characteristics of a group that is applied to all members of that group and is unlikely to change regardless of the evidence against it.

Institutional Discrimination

Discrimination carried out systematically by institutions (political, economic, educational, and others) that affect all members of a group who come into contact with it.

Passing

Presenting yourself as a member of a different racial or ethnic group than the one you were born into.

Miscegenation

Romantic, sexual, or marital relationships between people of different races.

Minority Group

Social group that is systematically denied the same access to power and resources available to society's dominant groups, though they are not necessarily fewer in number than dominant groups.

Genocide

The deliberate and systemic extermination of racial, ethnic, national, or cultural group.

Internal Colonialism

The economic and political subjugation of the minority group by the dominant group within a nation.

Population Transfer

The forcible removal of a group of people from the territory they have occupied.

Segregation

The physical and legal separation of groups by race or ethnicity.

Racial Assimilation

The process by which racial minority groups are absorbed into the dominant group through intermarriage.

Cultural Assimilation

The process by which racial or ethnic groups are absorbed into the dominant group by adopting the dominant group's culture.

Embodied Identity

Those elements of identity that are generated through others' perceptions of our physical traits.

Discrimination

Unequal treatment of individuals based on their membership in a social group; usually motivated by prejudice.

Double-Consciousness

W.E.B. Dubois's term for the divided identity experienced by blacks in America.